


Where There's Smoke

by Mirasa



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Characters will be added as they appear - Freeform, Families of Choice, Family, Give Suki the backstory she deserves, Multi, Temporary Amnesia, its a cliche for a reason
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-08-12 11:06:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7932295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirasa/pseuds/Mirasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pirates and brigands made trading with merchants from the Earth Kingdom difficult, but those on Kyoshi Island still managed to hear the rumors: false Avatars were still popping up even thirty years after the last one had disappeared, the Water Tribes were finally rousing themselves from their corners of the world to rejoin the war, and, most frightening of all, the Dragon of the West had come out of retirement.</p><p>The elders said that the spirits were growing restless. Suki had never really believed in the spirits--not until she found a boy washed up on the island and neutrality was suddenly a thing of the past. But who was Lee, really, and what does he have to do with the war?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lee

**Author's Note:**

> Ages  
> Zuko/Lee--15  
> Suki--19

_Where There's Smoke_

 

I.

_Kyoshi looked at the three girls assembled before her, their faces dirty and fierce and young._

_“You want to learn how to fight?” she asked them, these brave girls from different homes. From different worlds. “What about your families?”_

_“Families don’t matter much if you’re dead,” one said, the eldest, a thief from the air clans. Most of her family had died when Chin’s army besieged the Great City, and this girl guided a hundred refugees to the coast, to shelter. There was extinguished fire in her eyes, Kyoshi saw, and worried. Her voice was raw from smoke, and there were sores on her skin, and she looked exhausted. But she was standing, and she was snarling, and she had led a group of terrified people, and led them well._

_“My father and brother are off fighting in the war. Who is there to protect my mother and sister but me?” the wealthiest one said, her proper, sheltered accent soft but sturdy, like rich earth. She did not contain any fire in her either, but there was steel in her spine and dirt underneath her filed nails. Her clothes were torn and her arms bruised, and she knew that this girl would find some other way to protect her own if Kyoshi did not teach her._

_And the smallest of the girls just crossed her arms and scowled at the Avatar, her eyes dark and demanding and hungry. She knew no family but the two by her side._

_“Very well, then,” she said, and handed each a weapon._

***

            _The storm last night is certainly going to leave its mark,_ Suki thought, biting into an apple. She was taking a short break from the village repairs—a lot of roofs would need patching or outright replacing, and the streets weren’t much better off. There would be flood damage to assess and boat repairs to begin, but the people of Kyoshi village were focused on getting their homes back into working order before worrying about anything else. As it was, most of the village would probably end up staying in the Kyoshi Warriors’ training rooms overnight, which would set the warriors and villagers alike on edge.

            The last time she had seen the village this busy was during the Festival of Kyoshi, last year. There were people all over the streets, carrying wood and tools from the forest to the homes, making piles of the ruined materials, carrying water and food to the people working. The children were being kept occupied down by the beach, though the older children had been trusted with small chores. Suki had put the three youngest Kyoshi Warriors in charge of making sure that everyone was taking adequate breaks and drinking enough water, checking in with the kids down at the beach, and with Sen, the village healer. The children—because that’s really what they were—had accepted their tasks with small solemn faces and dedication. It had been one of them who insisted on Suki taking a break in the first place.

            “Suki!”

            Kimi, Suki’s second-in-command, came rushing around the corner. She skidded to a stop in front of her and grabbed her arm, pale green eyes wide. “The kids found someone on the beach. Looks like he hit his head pretty hard—must’ve lost his ship in the storm.”

            Suki dropped her apple into the hands of the small girl who gave it to her; she didn’t even wait to start eating the rest of it (she wondered if the trainees were remembering to take care of themselves, too). She and Kimi began back down the path to the beach, carefully following the path that had already been cleared of tree branches and shattered tiles through the village.

            “Is someone getting Sen?” Suki asked. They weren’t running. Outright running down the streets could send the villagers into a frenzy of worry. But they _were_ walking fast.

            Kimi nodded, her dark braids bobbing with the movement, strands that had come loose clinging to the sweat on her face and neck. “Sent one of the girls after her. They’ll probably beat us back to the kid.”

            “The kid?” Suki asked, startled, turning wide eyes on her friend. “It’s a _kid_?”

            “Yeah. Can’t be more than a teenager, and he’s way too skinny. He must’ve been on a boat for a while—a crowded one. His clothes are far too well-made; they weren’t on rations because they lacked the gold.”

            Suki winced. That meant, likely, a lot of dead sailors.

            “He hit his head pretty badly, too,” Kimi continued, “but the bleeding had stopped by the time we found him. I have no idea how he survived the waves in that storm, but he’s breathing okay now.”

            “Did he wake up at all?”

            “Not yet. Mumbled a few nonsense words, but otherwise—nothing.” She hesitated, eyes darting toward Suki. “At some point, he got on the bad side of a pretty powerful firebender.”

            Now, _that_ was interesting. “Burn scars?”

            “Really, it’s just the one—but it’s massive. Takes up half his face. I’m not sure if the eye or the ear works, frankly,” she said, unflinching but sympathetic. Many of the Kyoshi Warriors bore their own scars—between sparring practice and keeping pirates away from the village, they’d each seen their share of fights. But since most of them had never fought a firebender, and since the Fire Nation had left their small island alone for the majority of the war, it made sense to Suki that Kimi found the scar startling. But she wondered if it could truly have been as bad as Kimi described; surviving such a wound seemed far-fetched without a waterbending healer.

            “Refugee, then?” she asked. The other possibility—that this boy had been a soldier—was out of the question. Not because it wasn’t possible—she’d heard rumors of the Earth Kingdom generals, that most didn’t care that the boys weren’t of age if they were powerful earthbenders or skilled swordsmen—but because she couldn’t think of a reason why the generals would send anyone down to the Southern Ocean. Both the South Pole tribes and Kyoshi Island had remained firm on their neutrality so far in the war.

            “…Maybe. I’m inclined to think pirate, actually,” her second said, pursing her lips. Suki nodded, feeling a little sick. If he was a pirate, she would be the one responsible for deciding his sentence. She hoped that he hadn’t been; she preferred only to deal with pirates in combat. “He looks like he’s got some Fire Nation blood.”

            _That does make sense,_ Suki thought, but reluctantly. A lot of people had Fire Nation in their heritage since the beginning of the war: people from the colonies, usually, but there were a lot whose fathers were not known. Piracy was one career path that did not discriminate; they took whoever was handy with a weapon. Young or old, bender or no. That was, perhaps, the best explanation for a kid with fine clothes and deep scars at sea.

            They came up over the hill, out of the trees, and Suki could see the group of children gathered around a pair of figures in the sand. One was clearly the village healer: she wore dark green robes and was leaning over the other, who lay, unconscious, in the sand. Suki broke into a jog, Kimi following after, to join the others; the children parted for them, drawn apart by the two men who had been chaperoning them, at a loss for anything else to do.

            Suki kneeled next to the boy, across from Sen, who ignored her and continued inspecting the boy’s wound. He was dressed entirely in black silks, with no colors to declare his allegiance; there was another point in favor of Kimi’s theory. He had no shoes on and no weapons, so she wondered if he might be a bender, until she saw that there was an empty sheath tossed behind Sen. She must have cut it off him, to help him lie flat on the sand.

There was a large gash on the side of his head, and the bald skin around it was darkly bruised. She felt an absurd urge to giggle—that one spot of hair pulled into a ponytail was ridiculous, but it did make it easy to see the boy’s wound. The urge faded when she studied the sprawling scar he bore over his eye—his hair had probably been shaved to treat the burn.

            _Spirits, he really is young,_ Suki realized, looking over his pale, still face. Kimi had said, but that was different from being faced with that scar on a child. _He can’t be more than fifteen, at the oldest. Where are his parents?_ Likely dead, she knew: if they hadn’t been before, then there was no way that they had survived the storm.

            Sen finally looked up, keeping a hand on the boy’s pulse. “He’ll live,” she said, her voice strained. She had been tending the villagers all day before this. “We need to get him out of the sun, and he needs fresh water and a good meal. But physically, he should soon recover.”

            “Physically?” Suki asked.

            “There is no telling how this wound might affect him; there is something amiss in his chi, and the bruising goes deeper than I had hoped. It may heal on its own with no problems, but I doubt it.”

            Suki nodded, ignoring the worry pooling in her belly for this strange, unknown child. “Let’s deal with the immediate problem, then,” she agreed, and ordered Kimi back to the village to prepare the boy a meal. She hefted the boy up into her arms, Sen carefully leaning his head against Suki’s shoulder. He was heavier than she expected, more lean muscle than skin and bone, but she had carried heavier. Sen packed up her bag and they left the beach to the children, following the path back to the village.

            The boy shivered in her arms, and she walked faster.

***

            He came to consciousness slowly—then all at once, when he opened his eyes to an unfamiliar room and rolled from the small cot that passed for a bed, landing in a crouch on the floor without a sound. There was a girl’s voice coming from the doorway, which didn’t have a door so much as a curtain, and she sounded like she was arguing with someone. He reached for weapons he knew should be there but weren’t and he doubted himself. He didn’t even know what kind of weapon that he was reaching for, how would he know that there was a weapon at all? He wondered if he should let someone know he was awake; his head hurt something fierce, and there was a familiar taste of herbs on his tongue and a vague ache in his bones that implied someone had given him something to keep him asleep. He’d tasted it before, though he did not remember when.

            He swallowed, nervous, but unsure what other option he had. There were no windows in this room, and only the single exit. Somehow, these people—friendly or not—would find out that he was awake. “Hello?” he said, voice breaking.

            The arguing stopped abruptly, and the curtain was pushed aside. Two people walked in, one a woman with the unmistakable robes of a healer—in Earth Kingdom green, which he found strange, but recognizable nonetheless—and…something else. It _looked_ like a girl, but its face was white and streaked with red. It wore a long green dress and thick pads of armor, glinting gold sprouting from its brown hair. There were fans tied at its waist. It was tall and moved like it was dancing: every step graceful and deliberate. Deadly.

            “What are you?” he snarled at it, hiding the fear that jabbed through him, cold and sharp.

            That red mouth curled into a smile, and he realized that, human or spirit, its pale blue eyes were kind. When it spoke, the voice was a girl’s. “My name is Suki; I’m a warrior of Kyoshi Island. We found you washed up on our beach.”

            _Spirits are wary of giving their names to humans,_ a vaguely familiar, comforting voice in his head whispered. This girl was human, and she was a warrior. The boy knew that warriors had honor, though he didn’t know why. He nodded and relaxed his stance, though the movements caused pain to stab through his head again.

            “This is our village healer, Sen. She’s the one who took care of the wound to your head,” the girl, Suki, continued, and the woman behind her gave a shallow smile. The boy bowed back, his hands moving instinctively. The eyes of both women became wary in an instant, and he felt shame creeping over him. He wondered what he did wrong. When the girl spoke again, her voice was harder. “What is your name?”

            The question hit him with all the force of a blow, and he fell against the wall, clutching his head. There was a gaping space where the answer to that question was, and it _burned_ at the edges, a hollow white light that frightened him when he looked too close. “I don’t know,” he groaned, and the words cooled the fires in his brain, so he said them again. And again. And again, until soft hands wrapped around his wrists and pulled his hands from his face. He quieted, but the roaring fires in his mind remained and crackled from the depths of the bright caverns, and he threw heavy gusts of cold wind uselessly back, and oh, everything in him hurt.

            “Shh,” the girl whispered, and her arms were around him, his eyes pressed into the dark fabric on her shoulder. He heaved a sob, and her hands stroked his back, and he only calmed when it felt that there were no more tears in him. Hot shame filled him for that weakness, but the panic drowned that out too. “It’s okay. Just breathe.” He listened to the girl, and it felt like hours before the winds in his mind stilled, waiting.

            The girl moved but didn’t pull away, just turning to address the healer behind her. “Do you believe him?” she asked, voice quiet, and the boy wondered why she didn’t when all he could feel was the hollowness of his mind, his spirit. Whatever answer the healer gave her, however, must have been in his favor. “Can we ask any more questions without upsetting him?”

            “If you are careful, and do not press,” the healer warned, and the boy felt Suki’s sigh before she moved back. He followed her as she guided him back to the cot, crouching in front of where he sat, careful, at the edge.

            “Okay, kid,” she said, and her voice was kinder, now—like her eyes. “You don’t remember your name. That’s okay, that’s fine—you took a pretty sound hit to the head. That sort of thing happens. Right, Sen?”

            The healer took a moment to respond. “Occasionally, if the hit is in the right place. I must warn you: you may never regain your memories. Or they might come back to you tomorrow. The mind is a strange thing.”

            “See, kid? You might remember your name tomorrow,” Suki said, smiling. He tried smiling back; the expression felt unfamiliar and strained. He let the smile fade. “In the meantime, we need something to call you. Do you have any opinions?”

            He shook his head. The names he did remember felt raw in his mind—Ursa, Lu Ten. He didn’t know whose they were, but they were precious, and they were not his.

            “Okay. My father’s name was Lee; can I call you that?” Suki asked, patient. He looked at her. She seemed sincere, even friendly. He wondered if she really was, or if this was an act to put him at ease. He decided it didn’t really matter; he didn’t know anything about anything at the moment, and Suki was the closest thing to help he had. And he wanted a name.

            He nodded. “Lee is fine,” he said, and felt the name settle over him. It felt comfortable. Ordinary.

            “Great! It’s very nice to meet you, Lee,” Suki said. Lee tried to smile again. She beamed back at him, and her make up ceased to be frightening. “Can you tell me what you do remember?”

            He swallowed and searched his mind. If he hovered at the edges of some of the holes… “There was a ship. I was on a ship,” he began, slowly. “It was cold.”

            “Good, that’s really good, Lee.”

            “We were sailing north. There was a storm; I was on deck, and…and then there was a bright light—white, and blue, like lightning, and—” he broke off with a moan, clutching his head again, dragging in ragged breaths. “Sorry, sorry,” he gasped.

            “Shh, hey, it’s okay, that’s a lot of good information, Lee,” Suki said. She kept her voice low. “We can figure out what happened to your ship based on that.”

            He nodded, letting his hand drop back to his lap as the pain faded. He focused on keeping his breath under control in a steady rhythm.

            “Where are you from, Lee? Do you remember?”

            He shook his head. “Someplace warm, I think.”

            “What do you know about Kyoshi Island?”

            “It’s in the Earth Kingdom,” he answered. “Avatar Kyoshi created the island when she executed the Conqueror. It’s…in the Southern Ocean, I think.”

            “So you remember history,” Suki said, frowning. “That’s interesting. What do you remember about the War?”

            Lee recoiled. His stomach filled with cold dread and—his head didn’t _hurt,_ really, not like it had when he tried to remember his own name, but it felt heavier. Facts sprang forward in his mind, things that he knew were true but didn’t know how. “The War—begun by Fire Lord Sozin, nearly a century ago. His comet heralded as the beginning of a new age. The Air Nomads were defeated, save for Avatar Aang and his band of rebels-”

            Suki said, in a voice so calm that he wanted to duck for cover, “Rebels?”

            Lee met her gaze. Again, he did not know what he had done wrong, but he knew that, somehow, he had made a mistake.

            Sen cleared her throat, and they turned to look at her. “Lee is clearly from the Fire Nation, Suki. His understanding of the War is different from our own; listen to him. There will be much that you can learn. And you, Lee.”

            “How do you know that I’m from the Fire Nation?” Lee asked, recognizing it for the truth. “Do I have an accent?”

            “Not a very strong one,” Suki said, lip curling. “But that wasn’t our first clue.” She watched him for a moment, quiet. She sighed. “It’s your eyes, mostly. Golden as the sun.”

            “Yours are blue,” he said, feeling stupid. “But you’re Earth Kingdom, aren’t you?”

            “Well, yes, technically. But Kyoshi Island has harbored all of the elements in its past.”

            “Including,” the healer said softly, “those from the Fire Nation. And she shall grant safe harbor to one of Agni’s children once again.”

            Suki glared at the older woman. “You know that is not your decision.”

            “Whose is it?” Lee asked, but a sinking feeling in his stomach told him that he already knew.

            “Mine,” Suki said, but she said it gently, and Lee could hear the pity in her voice. Bile rose in his throat, but he forced himself not to say, or do, anything as she studied him. It was ages before she continued. “And I am not going to cast you out to sea for where you were born. Or who, if you ever learn who that was. Not unless you give me reason.”

            Lee did not say anything, unsure how to respond to her shaded threat. Suki worried at her lip, staring at him. She looked genuinely concerned, but Lee wondered—people were tricky. He had a feeling that he wasn’t very good at them.

             “He’ll have to go somewhere, Suki,” the healer said, brisk. “And as long as he’s healthy, he won’t be staying here. I have too many people who need looking after.” She nodded sharply at both of them and left the room without another word.

            _Where will I go?_ Lee thought desperately, staring at his hands. _I have no one. No money, no family, no trade. Nothing._

            “Well, lucky I’ve got a spare room, then,” Suki said, and even though she sounded resigned and reluctant, he felt a flicker of something like hope.


	2. Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lee gets an unexpected welcome to Kyoshi Island.

II.

_Aang looked over the motley group of airbenders that had managed to escape the massacre at the Air Temples. Some were tall, tattooed monks and nuns, fully adults and strong benders. They had been away from the Temples when Sozin’s armies struck, and their grief and guilt seeped into the air around them, weighing all of them down with the deaths of their fellows._

_But some were barely more than children, teenagers. Some had their tattoos, some didn’t. They were burned and angry and wanted to_ hurt _something themselves; ignored their grief in order to nurture their rage and hatred. Aang had found something dark within himself that understood, that called for him to burn any idea of forgiveness and peace within himself away to ash. He did not like to think about his own darkness._

_Finally, there were the small children. They were younger even than he was, frightened and confused and clinging to the torn edges of the adults’ robes._

_And all of them were looking to him for answers, himself only thirteen and wielding a quarter of the power that he should. He didn’t have any answers. He needed to learn the other elements, but the prospect of leaving this last group of his people alone while he sought teachers was unthinkable, reprehensible._

_“We need to keep moving,” he said, finally, the words creaking past the smoke and ash collected in his throat. “We need to disguise ourselves, throw ourselves to the mercy of the four winds, and_ run.”

***

 _For some pirate’s kid, he’s pretty quiet,_ Suki thought, studying her new charge over a cup of steaming tea that she was decidedly not drinking—she’d learned her lesson after the first time he’d made tea. He’d looked determinedly unconcerned when she’d come home from training that first day and he’d prepared his attempt at a meal and tea, and she hadn’t the heart to do anything other than tell him that his tea was ‘bracing’. His cooking skills were mildly better, but it would have been hard for him to mess up rice and vegetables, so Suki just gave him a few pointers as she dodged the more charred bits, and promised to come home early the next day to help him learn his way around the kitchen.

               He’d proven an eager and quick study, and she’d found herself actually looking forward to the meals she did not take in the mess hall with her fellow Warriors. The quiet, curious conversation with the teenager staying with her was a bit of a relief after a long day spent managing the villagers, the girls, the training schedules. They were a well-disciplined group, but they were still a group of altogether too energetic young warriors.

               Lee was a lonely, confused kid who needed someone. Currently, he was sitting across from her, sipping at his tea without even making a slight grimace—how?—and staring at his bowl of rice and fruit like it held all the knowledge of his lost identity.

               _Something’s got to break him out of this mood,_ Suki thought, tapping her fingers against the table. “What’re you doing for the rest of the day?” she asked, and ignored the flinch that came from him at being addressed. He needed to learn that she didn’t mean him any harm, but she had a suspicion that he suspected everyone of such motives, and not just her.

               “Um…”

               “Come on, kid,” she said, not bothering to hide her curiosity. She had really only seen him in the morning—he was always up at dawn—and in the evening, just before she fell, exhausted, to sleep. “You’ve been here for a week now; what have you been doing with yourself while I’m out?”

               “I spend most of the morning meditating,” he mumbled, his gaze darting up to meet hers, catching the sunlight and shining like copper coins. “Then I usually go for a walk in the woods. I read some of the scrolls you have.”

               She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but frankly, it was more than that. “Spirits, you must be bored out of your mind,” she said, shaking her head.

               “Actually, it’s been kind of relaxing.” He was trying to reassure her; he wasn’t very good at lying. Kind of terrible at it, frankly.

               “Well, we’ll do something today,” she decided. “The girls will be okay with Kimi leading the afternoon training session; she’s their second-in-command, and I should probably let her do it more often. You should see more of the village, and maybe talking with someone will help to jog your memory.”

               “You don’t have to do that,” he said, but quiet, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes. That decided it, though: he was trying not to be a burden, which was a behavior she’d seen in kids more than a few times. Many of them were removed from the parents who treated them poorly and placed in the care of the Kyoshi Warriors, along with any other orphans in the village; some of those kids had ended up a Kyoshi Warrior themselves, including both herself and her second-in-command. Kimi had already adopted a little sister.

               _Well. It’s a bit irregular, but he needs someone,_ Suki thought, surprised at herself. She tucked the idea away for later consideration.

               “We should run to the market anyway,” she said, sipping at her tea. It was _not_ any better cold, but she hid her grimace behind her teacup. “And we might get you a weapon. Always good to have one; you never know who might wash up on the beach.” She grinned at him, teasing, but he nodded seriously. _Hopeless._ “Do you know how to fight?”

               Lee shrugged, but his golden eyes shone at the prospect. Someone had taught this kid to fight, or she’d eat her headdress. He held out his hands in front of him on the table, and, frowning, stared at the callouses there. “I think I must have learned how to fight with something,” he said, flexing his hands.

               Suki nodded, slowly, considering. There were years’ worth of callouses on his hands—both of them, and they were equally sized. This was not someone who trained in a single weapon, with only a cursory training in his weak hand. He must have trained in dual weapons. And he must have started very, very young. Even their youngest trainees were thirteen, and they had just begun training with weighted fans, after training for years in the movements without weapons. Even now, their blades were dulled. Something told her that Lee had not had that luxury.

               “Well. I have an idea,” she said, mind turning. “The other warriors might not like it…but I think you will.”

***

               Hours later, aching and bruised, Lee felt happy for the first time since he had washed up on the beach. There were two iron fans strapped to his waist now, and, though they lacked the sharp edges on Suki’s gold-washed fans, their weight was reassuring. His clothes had gotten even more torn up, so Suki had handed him a few extra coins to get replacements in the village; it’d help him fit in a bit more, too. She’d also tasked him with getting some more fruit for the morning meal, and the trust she’d placed in him lifted his shoulders from the defensive slouch he’d fallen into, helped him meet the stares of the villagers as he followed Suki’s directions down to the little market that their village maintained.

               Going barefoot felt strange, but he had washed up on shore without shoes, and she had admitted sheepishly that she didn’t have the funds to buy him new clothes _and_ shoes at the moment, what with feeding both of them. And his clothes were uncomfortable, now: there had been sections missing from his shirt, and they had patched them over, but the silk didn’t hold the thread Suki had given him well.

               He found the fruit stand relatively easily, and was counting coins into the shopkeeper’s hand when he heard the voices.

               “—Fire Nation pirate—”

               “—what a disgrace—”

               He took a deep breath and released it, twice, thanking the shopkeeper and balancing the small basket of fruit carefully. He wouldn’t react; letting go of his temper would be a stupid way to pay Suki back for her kindness.

               A young man, maybe a few years older than him, fell into step beside him—on his left side, taking advantage of his restricted vision. Lee didn’t react other than to walk slightly faster; not only did the man quicken his step to match his, but he heard someone behind him stumble with the change in pace. He held back a curse and let his gaze dart back and forth, looking for a friendly face. He found none, just averted eyes and vacant doorways where before there had been stares.

               He found himself wishing for the comforting weight of _dao_ on his back. Lee started, realizing that he remembered what he used to fight with—and his distraction allowed the man to his side to slam into him, pushing him down into a nearby alleyway, scattering the fruit from the basket over the ground.

               He rolled into the fall, hands reaching for weapons that weren’t there, instincts overriding the weight of the unfamiliar weapons at his waist. He jumped up from the roll, kicking out an arc that connected with someone’s shoulder; their yelp brought a curl to Lee’s lips. There was a slice from behind him, and he felt a blade cut into his shoulder. He fell forward, away from the blades, and turned—there was another person behind him, wearing Kyoshi warrior green. Her face wasn’t currently painted: her tan face was rather pretty. Her eyes were a soft green, but there was no kindness in them.

               “Are you _crazy_?” he hissed, looking at the gash on his arm. It wasn’t deep, but it was bleeding. He dropped his hands to the dull fans on his belt—even without sharp edges, they were heavy, and better than nothing. But they were clumsy in hands used to the shape of a sword hilt, and he was hesitant to use them in combat after only a few hours of practice. “What are you doing?”

               “Look, boys,” the girl said, a nasal sneer in her voice. “The little Fire pirate thinks he’s going to be a Kyoshi Warrior!”

               The two boys who had followed him into the alley laughed, cruelly, and for a moment, Lee swore that the girl’s eyes glinted gold instead of green. Her smile was cruel. “Only a fool or a whore would take someone like you in,” she said, and laughed, and everything in him went cold and furious. “Which one is Suki, do you think?”

               He fell into a familiar stance without thinking about it, lowering his center of gravity and preparing himself from an attack on any side. The girl narrowed her eyes at him, and rushed him without another word—something in his actions had frightened her. All three were on him quick enough, but only the girl was a trained fighter—the other two were strong and fast, but both lacked the discipline with which the girl and Lee fought.

He was light on his feet, and the hand to hand combat was instinctive, and knew that he could take all three of them out. Except…he was tired, and still pretty dizzy from the bump on his head. And the other three had blades—the girl had actual war fans, not the practice ones that Lee felt he was too unfamiliar with to use, and the two boys had pulled knives out.

He punched out, his fist hitting empty air instead of the girl’s face as one of the boys yanked him by the shoulder, and smoke flung from his hand into the girl’s face. She reeled back, coughing, and staring, eyes wide and accusing, at Lee as he, shaking, stumbled in shock.

 _“Wow, Zuzu, you can bend smoke! You’re_ sooo _talented,”_ a familiar, friendly voice whispered in his ear. The girl’s brown hair looked darker in the shadows, and her eyes glinted gold again. _“Look, Dad—Zuzu’s a smokebender!”_

Lee didn’t see the blow coming; it hit the middle of his back, sending him sprawling at the feet of the Kyoshi warrior in front of him. As he pushed himself up from the dirt, a boot met his ribs, sending a shock of pain through his body, still bruised from the wreck and from sparring this morning. He tried to roll with the force of it, but another blow met him on the other side, and another. When they stopped, it was only because one of the boys had sat on him, keeping him in place, as the girl kneeled in front of him.

“We don’t want you here,” she sneered, but there was an element of fear in her eyes. She took a knife from one of her henchmen. She said the next word like a curse, and to Lee, it almost felt like one. “ _Firebender_.”

She raised the knife, and he tried to flinch from it, wriggling; she grabbed at his ponytail, pulling it tight, and started sawing the hair from his head. The shame filled his stomach, crawled up his throat like bile, and he kept thrashing. The movement jerked her hand against his head, and he felt the blade nick his skin, the blood pouring fast and warm down his face.

“Stay still,” she hissed between her teeth, pushing his head into the dirt. He blinked hot tears back from his eye, refusing to let them fall. He hadn’t cried when he got the scar on his face, when he had woken from the wound to find most of his hair shaved, the memory slotting itself into his mind easily. He would not let these three see him cry now.

“Stop this—get away,” a woman’s voice shouted, and Lee tensed again. He didn’t recognize the voice, but the hands holding him pulled away, and he burst back onto his feet, fists raised, eyes wild. Another Kyoshi warrior had joined them, face paint on and fans open in her hands. The two boys disappeared, racing out of the alley without a word. The warrior let them go.

“Kimi, let me explain,” the younger girl began, but her mouth snapped shut at Kimi’s glare.

She put one fan back into her belt, and strode forward. “Suki told me that we are calling you Lee for the time being. Is that correct?” she asked, her voice sharp and clear as any officer, and he nodded. “Lee. Are you seriously injured?”

“No, ma’am,” he said, standing up straight, hands at his sides. Kimi raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment. “Just a scratch.”

“Hmm. You’re still healing, though. Stop by Healer Sen’s; wait there for Suki to escort you home.” She turned toward the girl, eyes narrowing. “She may be late. Apparently there’s something we have to make clear to some of the trainees.”

Lee swallowed, glancing back at the girl who had attacked him, who looked a little like she was going to be sick. He didn’t feel an ounce of pity for her—except that he did, a little, because he may have only met Kimi a few times but she terrified him. He would not want that sharp green glare turned his way (which was a large part of the reason he didn’t wait for her to say anything else, and ran quickly out of the alleyway).

He tried to leave the ghostly image of the girl with golden eyes behind him, to wave her away like so much smoke and dust, but no matter how much of her face he drove back into the shadows of his mind, her voice remained, a persistent whisper in his mind.

***

               The stout, plump figure of the general standing at the rail of the ship was growing more and more familiar to Captain Jee ever since they lost the young prince. He stood at the prow and stared out at the horizon for hours, searching. The other men had already given up on finding the boy, only continuing the search because of their loyalty to the general and a reluctance to disobey orders. Still, loyalty would only last so long—as would rations. They had not originally counted on remaining an additional week in the Southern Ocean, and they would have to restock soon.

               Jee strode up to stand next to the general, and the two didn’t say anything for several minutes, instead choosing to silently watch the sun sink down below the horizon for the seventh day in a row. It was not until a few final rays of golden light were reaching across the sky that Iroh spoke:

               “I lost one son, years ago. He was a bright young boy, with dreams for an end to this war and a great love of art.”

               “I remember,” Jee murmured.

               “I had such high hopes for him—I thought he would be the best leader our country could ever hope to see. He would have been a good Fire Lord, Captain.”

               “The people would have loved him.”

               “Yes. But he was taken from me, and I saw the merits of peace—of balance between the elements.” Iroh heaved a great sigh, and Jee pretended not to notice the wetness of his eyes. “I wanted nothing more than an end to the killing. And then my brother—my brother and that spirits’ cursed Agni Kai.”

               Jee jumped—he had never before heard the older man curse, and the animosity toward their ruler was—well, not new, but certainly never before so clearly expressed.

               “I was sickened that he would so easily throw away what had been taken from me. His own son, banished—but at least banished into my care. And even though Lu Ten could never be replaced, a second son eased the wound. Not everything had been snatched away; the spirits were granting me a second chance to heal the world.” Iroh’s voice grew hard as iron. “But no. No—instead, Azula will reign, and she will burn all the world, and herself with it. There is nothing anyone can do to stop it, except the Avatar.

               “And it was the Avatar who stole the second of my children.”

               It was not the kind, genial uncle of the crown prince who turned to Jee now. Instead, it was General Iroh, the Dragon of the West, who gave the next order:

               “Let the world burn. We hunt the Avatar.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this update--only the second one!--is a little later than I had anticipated. I moved to Italy from the US yesterday, and that jet lag will get ya.  
> I'm posting this here because I don't know where else to say it: I'm terribly homesick. I moved here for a fellowship that I don't think I'm qualified for (especially after meeting the other participants) and I just want to go home, get a real job, and start living my life. My sister's pregnant, my dog is super old, and I feel like I'm taking a time out on life while everyone else is moving forward. I don't want to stay here for a year, but by the time I realized that, it felt as though it were too late to back out.
> 
> Anyway, enough with my angst! Thank you for reading, and please let me know your thoughts.


	3. Spies and Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lee recovers. Suki gets some interesting information.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry for my long absence, I had to deal with starting a new job and moving to a new country and applying for graduate school and then getting rejected from graduate school. It's been a topsy-turvy few months, but I've appreciated all the kudos and reviews and words of encouragement from a number of you.  
> So hopefully I'll get back to a regular updating schedule, especially as I have the next few weeks off of the more time-consuming parts of my job!

III.

             _She grew up feeling the water, but now there is only heat and the dry walls of her cell and the beating in the hearts of the guards, pushing and pulling like the tide. No one here says a word to her, so she recites the stories her mother told her as a child—before she was snatched from sheltering arms, before she crossed the Southern Sea and was brought here, to the cell, where everything was dry and hot and red. But the stories are from a long time ago, and she remembers little of them, and she makes up half of the endings. They used to feature gloriously terrifying sea monsters and fierce warriors and even romance, but now their monsters are dark walls and strange shadows who reach long fingers through metal bars._

_The monsters smell like medicine._

_The beating of the guards’ hearts gets louder just before the monsters return to torment her with unfamiliar potions, and they pull at her in a way that once had her reaching through the bars and squeezing her hands tight into fists. One of the guards collapsed, and the beating momentarily eased—but then the monsters came again, and more frequently after that, and the beating almost stopped for days. Even her own._

_And one day she grasped at the dirt beneath her hands instead of the beating._

_And the next day she was moved to a metal cage, hanging in the air, in the dark. And the monsters became her constant companions._

***

             Lee was patiently allowing one of Sen’s assistants clean out the gash in his head when Suki burst in through the door. He jerked at the noise, taking an elbow to his already jostled head, and flinched back at the furious expression on Suki’s face.

             Suki pushed the assistant aside—the man grumbled irritably, but knew better than to get in the way of a Kyoshi warrior on a rampage—and took Lee’s head in her hands, peering at the damage to his scalp. His head felt strangely light without the ponytail, and he was distinctly trying to ignore the sensation.

             “What happened?” she growled, her gentle hands a sharp contrast to the anger in her voice.

             “I—”

             “He was attacked by one of our girls, Suki,” Kimi said. Lee tried to crane his head around to see her; she had left him in the apprentice healer’s care and then disappeared, supposedly to yell some more at the girl and her two accomplices. Lee was not sure how he felt about Kimi. She was businesslike and distant and pretty in a rather startling, solid sort of way, but though there did not seem to be a lot of gentleness in her, she did not appear to hate him, either.

             “See to it that she is released from duty,” Suki said, mouth drawn in a hard line. She traced a finger along the skin just underneath Lee’s new stitches. “How is your head feeling?”

             Lee started. “A little sore,” he answered, surprised. A little sore was an understatement. His brain felt rattled and bruised and he was still seeing sharp gold everywhere. Little golden rings around wells of black, looking back at him every time he blinked. One of them was trying to fit itself over Suki’s eyes, but the strangeness of her makeup kept dislodging it.

             Suki raised an eyebrow and hmm’d a bit. It was clear that she knew he was lying, and she hovered next to him while Sen looked over her student’s work. She took the tea that Sen prescribed him for his head and shoved it into her own pocket, and she paid Sen’s fee—ignoring the healer’s quiet protest—and marched him out of the house.

             They walked in silence up the path that led to Suki’s home, Lee ignoring both Suki’s intense glare and the gold starts that still crept up into his vision every now and then. Those stars were probably why he missed Suki’s concerned glances the first few times, but by the time they reached the little hill that led to her front door, she was watching him with open worry. He ignored her. She wasn’t talking to him, it seemed only fair.

             She marched him into the house and gave him no choice about following her into the kitchen, largely because she pushed him through the doorway.

             “Lee, sit down before you fall down,” Suki advised gruffly.

             Lee did not like taking orders. He liked even less that he owed her so much right now, and the resentment bubbled hot like nausea in his throat, but he still didn’t say anything, because his head hurt. And he only sat because he wanted to sit down, not because she told him to.

             “It wasn’t my fault,” he muttered, watching Suki fill a kettle with water to start making his tea.

             “What was that?” Suki asked. There were little lines all over her forehead, creasing the white paint—she was upset. Angry with him.

             “It _wasn’t my fault_ ,” he repeated, louder—a little too loud. He snapped his teeth together. His head was pounding.

             Suki turned to stare blankly at him. “What?” she said, clearly confused. “Of course it wasn’t.”

             Lee opened his mouth to respond, but he hadn’t expected that, had been entirely prepared to fall into an impressive tirade about his needing to defend himself from her fellow warriors and how he deserved some trust, even if she had known the girl who attacked him for longer. But his anger dissipated into embarrassment, and mostly just left him uncomfortably aware of the gash in his head and the absence of his ponytail—which was accompanied by a nauseating sense of shame that he was desperately trying to ignore.

             Suki was still staring at him.

             “Sorry,” he tried.

             “Look, Lee,” Suki said, setting the kettle down on the table and sitting next to him. “Nothing that happened today was your fault. We have reports from Kimi and a couple of others that confirm that those kids attacked you unprovoked, that you did nothing that wasn’t in self-defense. I’m not angry with you—but I am very angry _for_ you, and a little sad that it was one of my girls who did this.”

             “Oh,” he said, intelligently.

             Suki smiled and jumped to her feet. “Now. What do you want to have for dinner? First you’ll need to drink your tea, but it’s been a rather exciting day, and we need sustenance!”

             Lee didn’t respond, just watched as the older girl started putting ingredients out on the table, telling him a story that in any other situation would have taken his mind off of things; it was funny and strange and featured both Kimi and Suki getting into a large amount of trouble as recruits. He fought down the rising warmth of affection for Suki.

             The tea made him drowsy. He barely managed to eat dinner before collapsing on the cot that Suki had set up for him in her main room, and the last thing he remembered is Suki settling the thin summer blanket over his shoulders before he drifted off into dreams of smoke and gold rings and the calculating, amused voice of a young girl.

             In his dreams, someone called out to him—the voice is comforting, unlike the girl’s, and the name the voice calls is not Lee. When he woke up, he did not remember what it was, but he thought the voice must have belonged to his father.

***

             Suki watched Lee drink his tea in the morning, ensuring that he drank every drop. He really hated the taste (not that he said anything, but she had learned from the incident with the pinemango that he blinked a lot more when he ate something he didn’t like, too polite to either wrinkle his nose or, spirits forbid, actually complain about it) but this was his final dose—three weeks had passed since the attack, and she could see that he was still having the occasional headache, though she wasn’t sure if that was because of the original damage to his head or the second hit. His hair had been growing in, stubbly, over his skull, hiding what would surely become a scar. He had shown no desire to grow his hair back into the ridiculous ponytail he had originally shown up with, for which Suki was privately relieved.

             She had also been keeping an eye on him for another reason.

             The three kids who had attacked him all claimed that Lee had bent smoke at them—which probably meant that the boy was a firebender, if not a very talented one. And while that in and of itself wasn’t illegal _per se,_ it was still something to be wary of—not necessarily the boy himself, but the reactions of the town if they found out as well as the possibility of uncontrolled bending making an appearance at any time. On their island, they had waterbenders and earthbenders who could train and undo the damage of children and teenagers discovering their abilities, but they had no such person to train a firebender.

             She had yet to see any evidence of this herself, however, and Kimi had already decided that the report was part over-active imaginations and part prejudiced excuse for the attack. Suki, however, had a sinking feeling in her stomach that the three attackers were right, and couldn’t bring herself to ignore the possibility.

             Mostly, she wanted Lee to tell her.

             She had delegated a lot of her duties to Kimi for the past three weeks, spending more time with Lee as he recovered. He had a terrible sense of humor and still made awful tea (it actually was getting better, slowly but surely), but he was clever and quiet, had a soft spot for animals, and was fascinated with the stories of the island.

             Sometimes, he even told her stories, usually surprising himself with his memory of them. There was no doubt, now, that he had been at least born, if not raised, in the Fire Nation: his stories heavily featured Agni, the clever sun spirit who was always up for a good prank, and—interestingly—Agni’s sister, La, who, it seemed, helped her brother fix the problems he caused and helped cause those problems in equal turns.

             _(The first story had started like this:_

_“After the Beginning,” Lee had said, turning a cup of tea carefully in his hands. “There were no nations. There were animals and humans and spirits, but no benders. There were dragons, and though they had physical forms, they were filled with the power of the spirits.”_

_Suki had thought the story seemed very self-important of the Fire Nation, but she kept her mouth shut, because Lee had never told her a story like this before._

_“Mostly, they liked to play—with the badgermoles and the bison, in the deepest oceans and the highest volcanoes. Most of the smaller spirits avoided them, because dragons are a crafty kind of playful, and often destructive. One day, two dragons were playing games along the shore, and a hurricane roared up to the beaches. This seemed great fun to the dragons, who immediately flew into the thick of it, playing with the rain and the lightning and laughing at the chaos of it. But when the storm died down, they flew back over the human village toward their home, and they saw destruction and sorrow and death._

_“The dragons were saddened by this, and one—whose eyes shone like gold—turned to his sister and said, ‘This must be why the humans never want to play with us.’ His sister, a white dragon with grey eyes and sharp teeth, agreed, and together they hatched a plan.”_

_Lee continued the story, describing how the dragons snuck their way into the spirit world, snatching powerful abilities for the humans who could not play in the storms the way they could. The golden eyed dragon brought fire back for his favorite group of humans, filling their spirits with flame as the sun rose over the horizon, and carefully teaching them how to wield it with a dragon’s grace. His sister, the white dragon, stole instead, for the humans in the cold parts of the world, power over the waves that threatened them and the ice that gave them shelter._

_“But the other spirits—the older spirits, those of earth and air, became angry. They had judged those powers too dangerous for humans, and now only half of the world had the ability of wielding the elements. They gave bending to their chosen people—and I don’t know how those stories go according to this legend, I’m sorry—but they also caged the dragons in the spirit world, because the dragons had stolen and given power that wasn’t theirs for the giving. The Ocean spirit was young and arrogant, and he fell in love with the youth and arrogance of the white dragon, who had long been enamored of the water. Her punishment was no punishment—it was a partnership. She was transformed into a spirit of the water and the sky, and her influence on the Ocean grew and grew. Her name is La.”_

_“The moon’s a_ dragon?” _Suki had asked, sputtering. Dragons had always been creatures of fire to her, and fire alone, but Lee had nodded solemnly. She wondered how the Water Tribes told this story._

_“They are brother and sister. There is life in the moon, just as there is death in the sun.” He sighed. “Agni’s fate was worse. He was thrown headlong into the sun, a punishment disguised as a test of his strength, and his physical form was destroyed. The spirit who used to hold the power of the sun had underestimated him and his sister, though, because his sister shielded him from the worst of the sun’s flame for a time, enough that he could wrest the power away from the spirit of fire, throwing him into the stars, and Agni’s spirit took his place._

_“Every hundred years, that spirit returns, gripping the souls Agni now claims, trying to take them back.”_

_Suki had shivered._ Sozin’s comet, _she had thought, though she didn’t say it. The two had finished their tea in silence.)_

             There was a knock at their door, startling her from her thoughts, and she left Lee at the table to answer. Kimi was standing outside, looking grim.

             “Jia’s back,” she said.

             Suki carefully shut the door behind her. “Where is she?”

             “Getting looked over by Sen. It was a rough month.” Kimi crossed her arms and sighed. “She refuses to report to anyone but you.”

             “What about the council?”

             “She won’t talk to the council.”

             “That’s unlike her,” Suki said, considering. Jia was one of their best, a warrior skilled both in sword and subtlety, and with a firm code of justice that only she really understood. Her trust in the council had always irked at Suki, but she occasionally pulled things like this, proving that her loyalty was truly to the Kyoshi warriors and their leader.

             “No, it isn’t,” Kimi agreed. They stood there for a moment, silent, until finally Suki nodded decisively.

             She leaned back inside and shouted to Lee that she had to leave but would be back for dinner, if he wouldn’t mind spending the afternoon by himself, which she had to admit he probably wouldn’t, after her hovering for the last few weeks. She waited for him to yell back an okay before breaking into a run down the path, Kimi at her heels, heading for Sen’s house of healing.

             They burst in—and Suki had to shake the familiarity of the scene from her mind, picturing Lee perched on the edge of the cot where Jia sat now.

             Jia was a year younger than Suki, shorter, and strikingly beautiful. She had thick dark hair and eyes that reminded Suki of mint leaves—one of which was currently swelled in an impressive black eye—and she had an easy smile. A jagged scar was the only flaw in her otherwise perfect face, but even then, it was a testament to the war. People looked at it and its owner’s melancholic beauty and spilled out their secrets.

             Jia, in turn, spilled out their secrets for the council and for Suki.

             “Suki, Kimi,” Jia acknowledged, her voice hoarse. Suki’s eyes drifted to the collection of purple bruises wrapped around her neck like jewelry.

             “She shouldn’t be talking,” Sen scolded, scowling, and Jia rolled her eyes.

             “This is important,” she said, and every syllable sounded painful.

             Sen looked to Suki for reason, which was unfortunate. Jia’s throat would heal eventually; Suki needed information now.

             “Jia, report,” she said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sen throw up her hands and stride out of her own exam room.

             “Someone is claiming to be the Avatar,” Jia began, and even Kimi flinched.

             “That’s…who’ve they declared for?” Suki asked.

             “That’s the thing. He’s definitely a colonial, and he appears to be trying to maintain neutrality,” Jia said. “According to one of my sources—a captain in General Fong’s army—he only did enough to demonstrate that he had the ability to bend all four elements before refusing to bend anything until both the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom sat down together to end the war.”

             Jia had amazing control over her facial expressions. It was part of what made her such a good spy—but here, injured and somewhere she knew she was safe, Suki could read the twist of her lips and the flatness in her voice easily.

             “You don’t believe him.” It was not a question.

             “I don’t know how he convinced people he could bend all of the elements, let alone that he’s a master in all of them, but no,” Jia admitted. “I think he’s desperately scrabbling for peace, and he’s going to get himself killed.

             “But Avatar or not, the Dragon of the West wants him dead. And sooner, rather than later—he’s declared personal vendetta in addition to the Fire Nation’s determination to find the Avatar.”

             Suki shuddered; she would not ever like to face General Iroh in battle, let alone be personally targeted by the man. “So this guy is as good as dead.”

             “Yeah. But General Fong is sending emissaries to the Water Tribes regardless, because he wants them to be a part of whatever happens—he thinks that they have remained free of the war for too long, and he’s calling them to send ships to his army. Both of them. He’s helping broker an alliance between all three; if everything goes well, we have three months to prepare before the Water Tribes send their ships north.”

             “We need to inform the Council,” Suki said.

             Jia shook her head. “No.”

             Kimi and Suki stared at her—Jia, their most reliable operative and one of the few Kyoshi Warriors that the Council actually trusted not to report only to Suki. Covered in cuts and bruises, her voice painfully rough, she looked…small, in a way that Suki had never thought she could.

             “Jia…what happened?” she asked, she could tell by the way that Kimi’s hand had dropped to her fan that they were all on the same page.

             “The man who attacked me. He knew where to find me. He knew my name. He was carrying this,” Jia said, and she reached into her chest-bindings to pull out a small object, which she tossed to Suki.

             It was a small gold coin, stamped with the distinctive shape of the traditional fan of a Kyoshi warrior.


	4. Family

IV.

_He woke up on the morning of his sixteenth birthday expecting it to pass just like the one before it: a small gift from his family, good wishes from his friends, a grueling training session with his fellow waterbenders—he had long since become a master, and now he trained with the other warriors and benders…and occasionally ducked into the healing tents to surreptitiously learn how to heal. He did this partially because he believed that one cannot truly be a master without mastering all of the art, even that which only women were supposed to learn, and partially because his secret teacher was Yura, the healer engaged to the chief’s son._

_He ate breakfast with his family and endured the good-natured teasing of his older sister, who gave him half of her serving of breakfast when she thought he wasn’t looking. His parents gave him a small knife—it’s handle was plain, and the blade was far more well-crafted than they could afford. They otherwise made no mention of his birthday, or how, at sixteen, he was supposed to find a girl to begin courting. He didn’t bring it up either, just hugged his family to express his gratitude for the small but sweet gifts. His sister ruffled his hair and grinned before heading off to her shift at the healing huts._

_His heart broke, because he knew that, despite his sister’s kind heart and intelligence, their family could offer no reputation or wealth to anyone who might have wanted to court his sister. And her scars, the evidence of her bravery against a polar bear dog when she was only thirteen, were just further evidence that she would make an unsuitable bride for a warrior—skilled healer or not. He had dreams of becoming such a great warrior that the rest of the Tribe would have to acknowledge his sister’s strength, if only not to insult him and his own family. (If the dreams also included becoming so honored that the chief would let him marry Yura, no one had to know.)_

_Kuruk hoped that one day, he would be able to do something to raise his family’s place in the Tribe._

***

Lee had hidden himself away in the woods behind Suki’s home—behind what he had to remind himself was also his home, now, inasmuch as he could have a home.

It didn’t feel that much like a home, at the moment. One of Suki’s warriors was staying in a guest room—and he wondered what Suki used to do with all that extra space before he washed up on shore, it was an awful lot of house for someone who usually lived alone—and her throat was injured so she didn’t talk very much, but she always seemed to be _there_ , watching and listening and smiling. But the smile never reached her eyes. He hadn’t been talking much himself as a result, and Suki’d been distracted, staring at maps and papers with Kimi and the other girl, mumbling and keeping secrets between them.

So that morning, when he woke up from a dream of a pretty woman with eyes like his, he left to go think about things on his own, and didn’t actually tell anyone where he was going, because it didn’t seem to matter, and because he needed to think.

He climbed a tree. Being up high had always helped him think in the past—and thoughts like those were becoming constant, thoughts that he had no evidence to back him up on, but thoughts that always turned out to be true. He still hadn’t remembered his own name, but he was beginning to hope that it would happen. And then he squashed down that hope, because hope never turned out well for him.

The woman from his dream had a name, one he had remembered even when he first woke up: _Ursa._ She was tall and slim, with a kind face and sad eyes. She had touched his face with gentle fingers—his face, which in the dream was unscarred. He raised a hand to touch at the edge of it.

That was a memory he didn’t think he wanted back.

This one had started when he woke up in a massive bed with silk sheets—his bed in Suki’s house was small and rough and he slept well every night, exhausted and happy—to see the woman in dark clothes, framed in flickering light from the hallway behind her. And then she had said goodbye.

“I think she was my mother,” he said, testing the words out. “Ursa.” He punched at the tree. Smoke filtered out around his fist, and he hated himself. For being angry, for spilling out smoke when he knew it would be easier for everyone (Suki) if he couldn’t bend a thing. He had a feeling, too, that it had caused nothing but difficulty before he had lost his memory. _Zuzu_ , whispered that cruel voice in his head. _Zuzu,_ _she left us._

He leapt down from the tree and took off running, because it seemed to him that if he ran fast enough, that cruel voice might not catch up.

***

The village seemed strange to him. Like he was in some sort of almost-nightmare, where everything he knew was twisted into something that should have been familiar and just…wasn’t.

Families were spending time together, hugging and smiling and cooking. It wasn’t anything different than usual, not really, he kept reminding himself. But the smiles looked sad and dull, children weren’t playing in the snow, and several families seemed only to be going through the motions. Everyone was all too aware that tomorrow all of the able-bodied men (and one or two women, not that their visitors from the Earth Kingdom, or even their own chief, knew that) would be boarding a ship in the early hours of the morning and heading off to war.

And Sokka knew that it was war, despite their Earth Kingdom diplomat telling them that they were only preparing to meet with the newly announced Avatar and some representatives from the Fire Nation to broker peace. He doubted peace would be so easily accomplished—their village was still hurting from the raids that took all but one waterbender from them, still recovering from the last time that their warriors had left the ice for warmer, more violent waters. Sokka had not gone with them, then, instead staying to train with the other warriors too young to go to war and keeping an eye on his sister, the last Southern bender.

His own family was still recovering from the separation.

Chief Hakoda had only returned a month ago from the front, where he had taken a small ship and trusted crew to join the Earth Kingdom armies, to keep Water Tribe interests in the war without risking all of their men. He came back with half of his original crew and two Earth Kingdom representatives to summon more aid from the Southern Tribe—a Tribe that now answered more readily to his son than himself, after years of his absence.

Sokka now felt uneasy around his father: he bristled at orders, second-guessed strategies. He had to answer not only to his father, but also to his father’s crew, where before he had been protecting and leading entire villages. Before, even warriors years his senior had learned to trust his judgment out on the ice.

He had suggested to his father that he should be left behind again, that it was more important that their village had a definitive leader—that should the worst happen, they would not, figuratively speaking, be left out in the cold.

That was when his father revealed to him the real reason that they had returned, and made him swear that he would not tell anyone, not even Katara, what Sokka’s purpose in the war was supposed to be.

Sokka snorted—he could hear his sister’s high, enthusiastic voice from here. She hadn’t asked anything about the war or why their father had come back for more people, because as soon as they had landed, their dad had introduced her to one of the Earth Kingdom representatives, this one a captain wrapped up in the warmest clothes they had to offer and still shivering, looking very unsure of himself.

“He’s a bender,” Hakoda said, his large hands on his daughter’s shoulders, proud. “He’ll be teaching you until we reach the North Pole.”

Katara had never even met another bender, and she had peppered the man with questions until he started to laugh and suggest that they get started on lessons while Chief Hakoda got caught up with the rest of the village.

Sokka leaned against the nearest igloo, behind Katara but in full view of the captain, who was still burrowed into his furs, and watched as the two of them tried to adapt earthbending moves to water. Katara was frustrated, but as usual that just made her more determined and stubborn, and she was pulling up ice like the captain was pulling up dirt.

“It’s time for a break,” the captain said, clenching his fist and dropping all of his dirt back into the ground, and Katara reluctantly let her ice flow back to the ground, where it pooled and began to freeze again.

“You’re getting good at that,” Sokka said, and Katara spun around, grinning.

“Sokka! Are you excited about tomorrow?”

“Sure, sis,” he said, and smiled back. She had always wanted to see more of the world, and this was more like a grand adventure to her than it was a mission during wartime. But he couldn’t begrudge her that, because she had been denied something so essential to her being for so long. “Have you packed?”

“I’ve been packed for days,” she bragged, and Sokka could see the captain hiding a smile behind her. He was glad that Katara’s instructor liked her—she deserved that, after having gone untrained for so long.

“How’re the magic tricks?” Sokka asked, looking at the captain rather than his sister, but it is, unsurprisingly, Katara who answers.

“It’s not magic,” she snapped. “And I’m getting really good at the basics.” She glanced, a little self-consciously, at the captain behind her, who was nodding. “Captain Ping says that we can start working on moves useful in combat soon.”

Sokka had to fight to keep his face still—the image of his sister in combat was unsettling. She had not accepted his offer of training with physical weapons, proclaiming proudly that benders should not need to resort to steel, which was a common idea but not one he agreed with. Instead, his not even half-trained sister was already making plans of going into battle basically unarmed. And there was nothing he could reasonably do to stop her.

“I’m going to steal my sister for a bit,” he said instead, and Ping nodded. Sokka no longer had any actual authority than the captain, not even in his own village, but he had grown used to command and found that if he, sometimes, acted like he should be obeyed, he still would be. And Ping was technically only here to train his sister, so his rank held less weight than it usually would have.

Katara looked irritated, but she followed her brother back to their family home, chattering about her lessons and how Ping had said that she was one of the most powerful benders he’d ever met, she just needed to be trained up right, how great was that?

Sokka manfully refrained from rolling his eyes.

***

“I haven’t seen Lee in hours,” Suki said, distinctly _not_ worrying, and tapped her closed fan on the table.

“Stop worrying,” Kimi said.

“I’m not worried, just surprised.”

“You’re worried. He’s a teenage boy, they like their space.”

“What do any of us know about teenage boys?” Jia asked, her voice still hoarse. The other two Kyoshi warriors stared at her, but she just shrugged. “Seriously. When was the last time any of you interacted with a teenage boy?”

“Well, technically—”

“Who wasn’t your dependent that you took in this year,” Jia said, rolling her eyes. “Besides. He left for a walk in the woods a while ago, I’m surprised you didn’t notice. He’ll be back in time for dinner.”

Suki wasn’t so sure. Lee had a tendency to retreat into himself, and whether that was a byproduct of his memory loss or a genuine trait of his personality, she wasn’t sure, but he had forgotten about enough times that she worried. She generally joined him for lunch to make sure that he ate, or sent Kimi or one of the other girls to check on him and make sure that he ate at least something.

Beyond that, she just…she had a bad feeling.

“I’m going to go find him,” she said, and ignored the exasperated exchange of expressions from the other two warriors. “Keep working on this, please,” she added, pushing a list of names toward them. “We need to know what we’re going to do when the Water Tribes get here.”

She left the house quickly after getting into another small debate with Jia, but took off quickly in the direction Jia had finally indicated that Lee had gone.

She wandered for an hour, looking for indications of where he might have gone—there was some early evidence of his path, but soon after she lost it to the trees, unsure of where he went and only able to guess. She doubted that he was yet as familiar with the woods as she was, but she knew that there was a small pool a little west of the house, and hoped that maybe he’d head there.

Suki didn’t get far down the path to the pool before catching sight of someone—the figure had dark hair and wore dark clothes with a flash of gold border. For a brief, hopeful moment she thought it was Lee, but then the figure looked up.

“Who are you?” Suki asked, hand dropping to the metal fan at her waist. The girl was small and slim, but Suki, being the leader of a large group of lethally trained young women, knew that that was no indication of deadliness, and the girl had a bow and arrow strapped across her back, a dagger at her waist. She looked like Lee, though, which made Suki hesitate—the girl had fragile, aristocratic features and pale gold eyes, her dark hair floating wildly around her face.

Suki blinked. The girl’s hair was _floating._

“Your boy is lost,” the girl said, stepping closer. She did not have a kind face, but it wasn’t a cruel one either—it was only that her eyes were hard and fierce. Like Lee’s.

“You’ve seen Lee?” Suki asked, stepping forward, reaching out. “Where is he?”

“He’s near,” the girl said. “He’s lost, but just a little. You can get him back.”

“Good, I intend to,” Suki said, fighting the urge to flee from the girl. “Who are you? I thought I knew everyone on the island.”

“You know me,” the girl said, mouth curling a little. “I am Nobu.”

Goosebumps crawled over Suki’s skin. Her hand pulsed around her fan, grasped both with the urge to fight and to bow. “One of Three,” she whispered, and she hated herself for the awe she felt.

Nobu inclined her head with a pleased smile that made her no less stern, every bit the graceful and capricious spirit Suki’s mother had told stories of. “I am honored to meet you, sister.”

“You—none of you—have been seen in centuries,” Suki stuttered out, feeling like she’d stumbled somewhere along the line and had no idea how to regain her footing. “We thought—we thought you’d left with the war.”

“We created the Warriors at Kyoshi’s side; we will fight by your side until the end. We never left. We simply…took a nap, if you will,” Nobu said. “Your boy—he woke me up.”

Just like that, Suki shook herself. If what this spirit was saying was true, then she didn’t have anything to fear from her, not truly. Her priorities realigned, she asked, “Where is he?”

“Near. But I have a message for you, before you find him.”

“What?” Suki asked, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. And failing, she was sure, but the spirit ignored it.

“That boy—your Lee has gotten himself tied up in so many knots that it’s going to take a great spirit to unravel him. I can already feel someone plucking at the strings.” Nobu paused, head turning like she heard something. She flinched and turned back to Suki with one final, ominous warning. “He is going to need you. He’s going to need everything you’ve got.”

“What are you—no, wait,” Suki said, desperately reaching out an arm to grab at the disappearing spirit. “Nobu!”

But the spirit had disappeared, without whispering so much as a word about Lee’s location. Confused, turning over her words again and again in her head, Suki took a step forward—and found that she was, somehow, without moving, already at the edge of the narrow clearing around the small pool.

Lee was perched on a rock, looking sullenly at the snakegeese slithering through the water, lip curled derisively.

Suki was unprepared for the relief that she felt at seeing him unharmed, and she lowered herself to the ground by his side, ignoring the voice in her head still whispering on about knots and great spirits.

“Hey, Lee,” she said. His face was dirty and streaked with dried tears, which she was ignoring for now. She hadn’t had a brother in a long time, but she remembered that he had desperately hated crying, even when he had been small. She was assuming Lee was at least a little the same, or hoping, because she had very little experience with boys to work off of otherwise.

“Hey, Suki,” he said. His eyes flicker to her face for a moment, then back to the snakegeese. “Don’t…don’t these just look…wrong?”

Suki glanced at the pond. She’s rather used to snakegeese, but they were dangerous—they had a kind of venom, one that wasn’t deadly but incredibly painful nonetheless. Their scaled backs and feathery wings, fanged beaks and long, wriggling tails weren’t wrong. It was just how they were.

“I remembered turtleducks today,” he said, and Suki knew that it wasn’t just the animals that made his voice so heavy. “They’re…they’re so _cute._ ”

Suki giggled.

“No, really, they are!” Lee said, a bit defensively. Suki felt a bit bad for giggling. “And they’re fiercely protective, and…”

“They remind you of home.”

“Yeah. I was hoping…I was hoping that you had some on the island, once I remembered, so I went looking for water. And all I found are these creepy slimy things.”

“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a turtleduck,” Suki admitted. She could easily picture what they might be like—fluffy and aquatic and sweet. “Tell me about them.”

“My mom kept them in her garden,” Lee said, surprising her. Suki wrenched her neck turning to look at him, but he didn’t notice, gazing out still at the animals that only, in the vaguest sense looked like turtleducks. “She loved them. She told me that they loved their children so much—that they’d fight for their kids, do anything to protect them. Just like people.” He inhaled deeply, bracing himself for whatever it was that was coming next, and Suki found herself almost holding her breath. “Then my mom left me.”

“ _Oh,”_ Suki said softly, heart aching. She remembered losing her mother, remembered the aching loneliness of the grief and the absence of all that love. Even then, she had the comfort of knowing that her mother would have done anything to stay, anything at all—and Lee was losing his mother all again, remembering that confusion and pain and grief—all of it undulled by the knowledge Suki had of her own mom. “Oh, Lee, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah,” he said, and they sat, silent, watching the snakegeese. After a while, he said, “I don’t know why I’m so upset. It’s not like it changes anything—it already happened, whether I remembered it or not. It doesn’t matter.”

His voice barely even shook, and he sounded like he was trying to convince her more than himself by saying that, like he already did actually believe that it shouldn’t matter.

“Of course it matters,” she said. She reached over and grabbed his hand, wrapping it in both of hers. “It’s okay to be upset about it. But she shouldn’t have left you. I don’t know why she did—I don’t really care what the reason was. Family takes care of each other.”

Lee looked at her, pale eyes flat even in the shadowed sunlight of the little grove, and shook his head. “I don’t have any family, Suki. They’re all—” he choked, shaking his head, expression closed off and pale eyes haunted. She wondered what else he had remembered during those few hours he wandered the woods. She didn’t think either of them were ready for her to ask.

“You have family,” she said, squeezing his hand. “You must do this differently in the colonies, but when I declared you my dependent a few weeks ago, I took responsibility for you and your wellbeing. For the Earth Kingdom, that’s a pretty strong declaration—your reputation is my reputation, your problems are my problems. Your accomplishments are my pride and your crimes my shame. That’s what family is, here.”

Lee stared at her, brow furrowed. “You barely knew me when you did that!”

“I knew you well enough. You’re honorable and sweet and hardworking, you make awful tea, you’re a good fighter. You needed someone, and I decided that that would be me. I thought you knew,” she said, a little desperately, because she was afraid he’d be mad. “You remember so many of your other customs!”

“In the Fire Nation, family only comes down to blood,” he said solemnly. “You can’t just say that someone’s family and that’s all! Blood is everything—warmth and family and _life_ and sacrifice.”

“Oh,” Suki said, wondering why there seemed to be a rock settling in her stomach.

Lee still looked rather stunned.

“If…if you want,” he said, hesitantly, carefully, “there is a…well, we do adopt people, too. And then we could be family according to both.”

“What do we do?” Suki asked. Hesitation on her part, here, she sensed, would scare Lee; it would make him think that she did not want him as family, even though her claim had been made first. He was fragile and scared and so, so lonely.

“We build a fire,” he said. “And we bleed together.”

So Suki built a fire, and at dawn—just as La faded into the light of her brother—they drove the blades of Suki’s fans into the flesh of their forearms, and clasped hands over the fire, pressing the wounds together, blood dripping off of their elbows into the dancing flames. The sun rose red over the horizon, and the fire burned green, for just a moment, a flash of heat hotter than Suki had ever felt in flame before.

And that was it. It was more than her declaration of Lee as dependent, to be true, but also…less. Nothing changed for them, the way it had after Suki had declared him dependent so many months ago, because they had already been treating each other as family even if only one of them had truly perceived it a such. She continued drinking Lee’s horrible attempts at tea, he continued training with weapons he was remarkably skilled at for only having picked up a few months ago. They both still had nightmares. Suki was still preparing for the next step of the island’s part in the war, and Lee remembered snippets of his life. His mother’s name, his cousin’s face, his sister’s bright fire. Bending forms he was sure he shouldn’t know.

And then the Water Tribe ships pulled into the bay, and everything changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another chapter! We get to see a bit of Sokka in this one. That last paragraph is a bit of a time jump, but we're about to get into the actual plot!

**Author's Note:**

> I am a mess who will be trying to update as regularly as possible.


End file.
